Opinion
Column

Prime Minister Stephen Harper waits for the start of the Speech from the Throne in the Senate chamber on Wednesday. Earlier Harper said that he would not be attending the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which is to be held in Sri Lanka.
REUTERS/QMI Agency

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently announced that he would not attend the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which is to be held in Sri Lanka. In making the announcement he indicated that his decision to boycott the meeting was based on his determination that the Sri Lankan government had a lamentable record of respect for human rights, and had done nothing to improve on that record in recent years. In pursuit of his so-called “principled foreign policy,” Harper has decided to set Canada apart from the 52 other member states of the Commonwealth. Is this wise?

In the first place it should be noted that boycotts rarely achieve any desired objective. In the realm of public relations there is an old saying to the effect that: “The absent are always wrong.” Translated to the realms of politics and diplomacy this means that you have to be in the room or in the trenches to advance your interests, your ideas or your values. Standing on the sidelines and crying in the wilderness will do nothing to alter the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, particularly when you are alone in doing it.

Now Prime Minister Harper is certainly right to find reason to complain about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. In the course of a civil war which lasted nearly 30 years, the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority inflicted horrific violence on the civilian populations on both sides of the divide. As the war came to an end in 2009, the triumphant Sri Lankan security forces indiscriminately killed thousands of Tamil civilians. These excesses have been well documented by respected human rights organizations. What is more, the Sri Lankan government has displayed little contrition for the actions of its security forces and done virtually nothing to bring those responsible to account.

That said, is this reason enough for Prime Minister Harper to boycott the next CHOGM? Some of Harper’s predecessors would not have thought so. Prime Minister Mulroney attended a CHOGM in Harare, Zimbabwe as the guest of President Robert Mugabe. Prime Minister Chretien attended a CHOGM in Kampala, Uganda as the guest of President Oweiri Musseveni. Both Zimbabwe and Uganda, and their leaders, have appalling human rights records, including repeated armed attacks on ethnic and political opponents.

The simple fact is that attending an international meeting in a given country does not confer some sort of Good Housekeeping seal of approval on its government or its leaders. The same holds true for bilateral visits to foreign countries. Pierre Trudeau and Joe Clark were certainly not endorsing the Soviet system or the Gulag when they paid visits to Moscow in the 1970s and 1980s. And presumably Stephen Harper himself does not believe that in the course of his visits to Beijing he is expressing approval of the Chinese government’s human rights record or of its activities in Tibet. What he is doing, in effect, is recognizing world realities as they exist and pursuing Canada’s economic interests with a major trading partner and emerging economic power.

Why is Stephen Harper not prepared to display the same degree of realism when it comes to the CHOGM in Sri Lanka? The answer here has nothing to do with a “principled foreign policy” and everything to do with domestic politics. By taking this stand he is hoping to attract to the Conservative Party the hundreds of thousands of Tamil voters who inhabit the Greater Toronto Area. It falls into the same category as his unstinting, unqualified and uncritical support for all of the policies and activities of the current Israeli government, regardless of events or circumstances. Here too he is primarily interested in securing the votes of Canadian Jews in Ontario and Quebec, and of Christian fundamentalists in Western Canada. But, as is so often the case, what makes for good domestic politics makes for bad foreign policy.

By declaring his intention to boycott the next CHOGM in the name of a “principled foreign policy” what message Harper is sending to others in the international community? He is in effect telling the prime ministers of such old friends and allies as Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand that he is somehow morally superior to them. He is telling some 50 other Commonwealth leaders that his principles are superior to theirs. And he is telling Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who greatly values her role as head of the Commonwealth, that she is somehow associated with a seriously flawed and negligible institution. And Harper has compounded all of this by threatening to reduce Canada’s financial contributions to the work of the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately this is all part of a pattern evident in the Harper government’s foreign policy. Although physically present in New York and able to do so, Harper has deliberately chosen not to address the UN General Assembly for two years in a row, thus snubbing the organization. His foreign minister, John Baird, has chosen to unburden himself of public lectures highly critical of the UN and its activities. Neither are likely to endear Canada to the UN Secretariat or to many of the member states of the organization. Similarly by its unqualified support for the current Israeli government, the Harper government has alienated a very substantial number of Arab and Muslim countries. Most recently Prime Minister Harper advised an American audience that he would not accept “no” for an answer from the United States government on the question of building the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline. This must have gone over like the proverbial lead balloon with President Barak Obama and his advisers in the White House.

Canada is not a superpower or a great power, but a middle power. As such it is heavily dependent on a smoothly operating system of international organizations to ensure its security and prosperity. It is also dependent on the good will of other countries and their governments. To gratuitously alienate foreign leaders and world organizations is not in the best interests of Canada and Canadians. Thus some of the postures and poses struck by the Harper government are not only counter-productive but dumb.

Louis A. Delvoie is a Fellow at Queen's University's Centre for International and Defence Policy and Former Canadian Ambassador to Algeria and High Commissioner to Pakistan.